U-boot has trouble finding my harddrive

I have just bought a new 500GB harddrive because my old Maxtor 80GB started having problems.

Installing OS4.1 on this harddrive went without any problems, except that now OS4.1 will only boot from the harddrive after a reset. On trying to boot immediately after turning on the computer the harddrive isn't found and it complains that it can't find an SLB.

I assume this is because the harddrive is too slow to init, and U-boot is too impatient when scanning for devices. I have tried changing a1ide_timeout from Prefs/UBOOT and U-boot commandline but this doesn't seem to have any effect (have tried values: 30, 50, 500 and even 5000). It still only scans for the same amount of time.

@salass00

I have 2 HDs in my micro, an 80G & a 400G. I switched them around so it would boot off the 400G drive, same result, no slb found. It seems that the settings in the uboot menu don't alway "stick". Think the main uboot variables are boot1=cdrom, boot2=ide, boot3=ide, set a1ide_conf for your drive setup & ide_maxbus=2 if you're using both ide ports. Uboot prefs should work as well.

One other thing I've noticed, in the RDB settings, the 400G has Last LUN ticked, the 80G has Last ID & Last LUN ticked. The slb is installed on both drives.

@sundown

I just tried setting a1ide_conf in Prefs/UBoot and it didn't help any.

Unit 0: DVD/CD
Unit 1: Harddisk
Unit 2: Disabled
Unit 3: Disabled

@sundown

maybe it's a bug or missing feature in UBoot depending on
the size of the installed HD? I have two 200GB HDs installed
without problems.
They boot and never gave me an issue. Haven't tried with
bigger drives, though.

@salass00
While it shouldn't be a problem, try to degrade the speed
to DMA66 or even best PIO and see if it makes a difference.

For me i have two UDM100 capable HD's but neither on the
(fixed) onboard IDE nor on a capable Sil card those speeds
worked. The HDs were acting up, i once managed to boot into
OS4 but had problems over and over and soon a lockup on I/O.

Worth a shot methinks?

Hi @salass00
I just tried setting a1ide_conf in Prefs/UBoot ...
What about Sys:Prefs/UBoot > A1_IDE Port settings ?
I've had problems with the "automatic" settings.
Use "hardrive" and "DVD/CDrom" instead of "automatic".
?Maybe?

@salass00

Do you use the onboard ide controller, or a sii0680?

@ZeroG

?A1-C onboard IDE controller.

@salass00

I think your Harddrive is slow to spin up, try increase the "scan timeout" value in uboot, (there should be one for each controller).